The Connection Magazine The Connection Magazine Fall 2017 | Page 28

BOB CELL A
FOR BOB CELLA, ALL
ROADS LED TO SERVICE
WHEN you get down to it, workers’ compensation is all
about building relationships.
That’s how Bob Cella has always viewed the business,
and after almost 40 years, it still holds true. Workers’ comp
is completely different from all the other commercial
coverages, he says. Success just doesn’t happen without
service.
A case in point might be the family-run trucking company
in Shrewsbury that’s been insured with A.I.M. Mutual for 27
years, almost from day one. The business opened in 1980,
and now the son of the founder is running it. Bob received
a courtesy call from him out of the blue last year to tell
Bob two things: (1) the company would soon be sold, and (2)
he’d met with the new owner to urge him to stay with A.I.M.
Mutual. The new owner took his advice.
Those are the stories Bob finds most gratifying, and there
are a lot of them. He has seen employers underestimate the
impact that exceptional service makes and change carriers
because of a perceived price savings, only to ask their
brokers to place them back with A.I.M. Mutual.
And just recently, he heard from a person whom he’d
worked with early in his career. As a producer, Bob had
written and serviced her company’s account some 35 years
ago with a different carrier; the business was later written
by A.I.M. Mutual where it stayed until the company was
sold. That was years ago, and she’s now working at another
company who is a customer of A.I.M. Mutual. She happened
to see Bob’s name on a 2017 A.I.M. Mutual policy, took the
chance he might remember her and her former company,
and called to say she was happy to be back.
It’s all about building those relationships.
Bob, Vice President of A.I.M. Mutual, plans to retire
next year after 24 years with the company. He joined A.I.M.
Mutual as a Regional Underwriting Manager and was named
Vice President of Operations in 2005. He took some time
recently to discuss the company, the industry, the changes
he has seen, and his own professional experiences.
How did you get your start in insurance?
I was out of college for about two years, working in
sales, not associated at all with insurance. I answered an
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